


Something More Than a Machine

by eleloh



Category: Pacific Rim (2013), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pacific Rim Fusion, Initial Jim/Gaila, M/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-20 18:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/890334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleloh/pseuds/eleloh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Kaiju erupted from the depths of the ocean more than two decades ago with more than fifty attacks on the coasts since then. Jim is born into a world at war, a world which trembles in fear of beasts, a world which created its own. He'd never thought he'd be a Ranger, spent too much time fighting to keep himself alive to think about the world. It wasn't his problem. Until it is, until he's a hero, thinking he could do this forever. Until he can't anymore.</p>
<p>Three years into his retirement he's made peace with knowing he'd never pilot again, not even if things get really bad. He just never thought things could get as bad as the horror happening at Shatterdome Vulcan. Or that he'd have to jump back in with the one pilot he knew he couldn't possibly drift with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Flight Test

**Author's Note:**

> So after seeing Pacific Rim, a friend and I talked about how well Star Trek would fit into the Pacific Rim universe and there weren't many fics yet, so I decided to go for it. 
> 
> I envision this'll have at least two to three more parts to it.

It's Gaila who tells him about the Kaiju.

It's likely she would anyways but tonight her communicator is the first to start its alarm. Jim rolls over, squinting to watch her nude form get out of the bed to answer it. It could be a number of things from Jaeger maintenance to new drive-suit fittings. His own communicator wasn't going off so he didn't think twice about closing his eyes and drifting back to sleep, Gaila's soft sheets warm against his skin. They smelled like her, like him, like them. "Jim, wake up," she shook him forcefully. "Jim get up. You're first call. It's a Category III." He jolted, rubbing his face with one hand and looking around for his clothes. 

"What? No. I… but my thing didn't go off. They didn't beep me."

In the event of a kaiju appearance, both on-call teams report. Jim bent to look under the bed and found his pants. His communicator wasn't strapped to the belt nor was it anywhere on the floor. "Do you even know where your communicator is?" Gaila asked while pulling her uniform on, deep green coat over heavy pants. Even inside the Shatterdome temperatures were cold as snowman's cock. Gaila was prepping to run straight into her own drivesuit to serve as back-up at a moments notice if anything went wrong.

Even for a Category I Gaila was ready to ship out. Things happen, she said, I want to be able to help if I can. It doesn't matter if I die. 

Jim had a drawer in her room, kept papers and shoes strewn across the room and never knocked before coming in and sometimes he even uses her toothbrush but never tells her. At this rate one day they might be rangers together. They had a decent compatibility score when Jim's record was put into perspective. 

He stopped himself. Kaiju, here and now, reality.

Jim pulled a full smirk while gesturing to his naked body. "I don't even know where my underwear is." 

"Yeah you're not handsome or funny," she said but the tender way her eyes crinkled when she looked at him told him something else entirely. She looked round before tossing the clothing from its place on her desk. He dressed quickly and together they ran to the loading dock where Pike was waiting in his full suit. Scotty lingered, tripping over his words and gesturing wildly as Pike nodded severely. Jim caught something about a new addition to their weapon repertoire, something about a chainsaw.

Pike caught his eye, appearing deeply concerned for the man or possibly asking for assistance in handling him. Scotty had too much time on his hands. Or he just didn't sleep, constantly designing and redesigning Jaegers and weapons to outfit them with. Jim knew for a fact that he at least three top secret projects that command was overlooking. Top secret wasn't as secret you would think when the primary engineer barged in your room at all hours to show off his newest development in machinery.

The technician team suits him up, the circuitry suit aligning with his nerves. Then the armored drive-suit, heavy and sure. Gaila and shortly after her co-pilot, another woman Jim didn't know too well, are fitted as well. After a Jaeger fell a two years ago and proceeded to wreak havoc on the city, they've started initializing a back-up system that is deployed at crucial moments, where the scale can tip over from 'They Can Handle It' to 'They're Going to Die'. Less Jaegers go down this way, less friends to mourn. There is always a possibility that they'll both die in a terrible freak Kaiju accident but Jim decidedly does not think about it. 

Here and now, reality. Like the actual Category III out there now.

"What's going on? Got anything to go on?" Jim asks as he reached Pike and Scotty, still in deep conversation with the addition of McCoy. "We're calling it Spiderbait," Pike says, walking toward the conn-pod. " More of a lizard though. A lot of arms, big reach, long tail." Jim turned back to address McCoy. "What're you doing here? You're always talking about your patients and experiments and yet I see you doing neither literally all the time." McCoy scowled while Scotty let out a startled laugh. Scotty was terrified of Bones, probably due to that one visit he had to the Doctor's med-bay. There was a lot of needles involved. 

There was a nerve twitching in McCoy's temple. "Jim," he started, taking a deep frustrated breath before thinking better of it. He must want something.  "No."

"The Doctor here wants us to take the Kaiju back with us," Pike announced, giving the Bones look as Jim whispered 'knew it _'_ under his breath. "Intact."

"Or close to it! Jim, I need more samples to work with, more organic matter test. Those damn scavengers strip the good stuff away before we poor humble scientists get there. If I can find a way to nullify the effects of the Blue, well- then!" He made a sweeping gesture. "The good god above will finally smile on this shitstorm of a situation. Just think about what we could do, Jim."

"You could reverse the damaged land the Blue destroyed? That's amazing," Jim turns to his commanding officer. Bones always appealed to him personally when he really needed something but this is dangerous. There are Kaiju scavengers for a reason. Bringing in an intact one hasn't been done for a reason. "Pike?"

He sighed. "We can try. But if it gets destroyed, it's destroyed. I'm not going to play with a handicap, Doctor and you will take what we give you, if you give you anything at all."

"Thank you sir!" As they entered the controls, he mouthed to Jim, 'you better get me that goddamn Kaiju'. With a stern scowl and aggressively pointed finger he was off, likely to the communications control where he'd pace and watch their progress. He'd have two bags near him, his med-bag and his supplies for taking samples, so he could grab and run whichever he needed first.  

"Jim!" 

Gaila was running toward him. Her curly red hair was tied back into a severe ponytail. Her drive-suit was a deep green, with notches carved into her shoulder pads, counting how many Kaiju she's taken down. She's up to five. She stood squarely, looking at his face, his eyes, sweeping over his jaw. Not a muscle in her face quivered. He thought of all of her secrets that he didn't need to drift to know. "I'll be heading to the Gallant now. Don't make me have to come out and get you." 

_Don't die, be safe, come back to me, Jim._

Jim nodded, entering the head of the Jaeger. 

\---

They're in Anchorage. Before the Jaeger program Jim knew all he ever needed about the city which was 'Alaska' and 'hella cold' and even now those two descriptors are completely accurate. It's always sub-zero temperatures and snow, big clumps that can diminish their sight line. Ice builds up in the water during the coldest months of the year, making it even harder to handle the Kaiju who aren't effected by the cold. Even though the Bandit Chase is outfitted with a thermo-nuclear reactor as its core, the cockpit always carries an uncomfortable chill. But it's barely noticeable when you're trying not to be killed by a gigantic monster from the sea.

If they were ever stranded or even somehow tossed into the ocean by the Kaiju though, they'd be dead. No hope for survival, just dead. 

"Don't think about it," Pike said. 

"I wasn't thinking about it."

"You were thinking about it."

_"Bandeet, the Kaiju is three point two one kilomeeters west and moving fast. Looks like a sweemer after all. Remember, lots of arms, don't let eet get hold of you."_

"Understood," they say in unison and shift into an easy defense position. The water before them is breaking, a fin cutting the surface. The Kaiju, Spiderbait, breaks the surface with a deafening roar. It has a thick scales on its face like a lizard and taloned arms and legs. A massive tail is dotted with what is undoubtedly razor sharp spikes. 

It charges.

A split second thought from Pike and they're unleashing two plasma blasts. One hits, the other's dodged. Spiderbait lunges, claws outstretched. They twist away and throw a hook into its face, sending it stumbling for a mere second. The scales are as thick as they previously thought, not the weak point they still hoped it would be. 

The massive tail comes around to slash against their chest, throwing them back into the water. They're submerged for a moment, enough time for the Kaiju to throw itself on top of them. Exactly what they weren't supposed to let happen. It claws through a plate off their armor, damaging the machinery underneath and jolting their connection. With those parts exposed to frigid water the drift gets a bit heavier. There is the barest thought of the base, of Bones, of Gaila, of everything Jim has gained, the unspoken promise he gave. _Don't die._

"Jim!" 

"On it!"

He grips the Kaiju's skull, firing three shots point blank from the palm. It screams, a high pitched screech that engulfs the conn-pad. The talons that were holding them down release, providing them the time to re-fire at the stomach of the monster, sending it tumbling back into the water. A weak point. The barrage sent them into shallower water, better for the Jaeger but eliminating the ability to swim for the Kaiju.

If they don't lead an offense first, the Kaiju with likely lunge again, arms outstretched to catch onto Bandit's armor and bring them under. Perfect opportunity to unleash the new chainsaw built into both arms. When the beast recoils, they'll let loose the multiple missiles hidden within their chest plate. The plan is dissected though the drift for flaws before being accepted by Pike who engages the weapon on his side. It whirs to life. When Spiderbait does lunge toward them again, two arms are sawed straight through, vibrant Kaiju Blue pouring out the wound. The missiles fire but only one hits it mark when the Kaiju ducks and spins around to swipe them with its tail. 

Jim sees the opportunity, quickly doing the calculation of the Kaiju's mass, the force needed and the time required to prepared a full power Pulse. In his mind, Pike, it won't work, it'll hit the damaged parts of the Jaeger, too close to the reactor, no time. A sense of fear, worry about what the damage could do to their neural circuitry. The intense damage to the Jaeger made it harder to pilot but Jim was confident. There's time, there's enough time. It'll work, it'll work. Approval, conviction, die together or live to tell the tale.

The spikes of the tail crash against their exposed parts, somewhere above them the ensign is shouting at them in broken Russian, the tail comes back to finish the job and together they catch the limb from its strike. It spasms violently against their hold and before Spiderbait can reach around with one of its remaining arms, they lift and start spinning. Within the Bandit sparks fly and metal groans under the force. It takes two rotations before the Kaiju is fully out of the water and three more before they let it go flying above them. 

It flies into a clear night sky, for once unclouded by snow and storms. There is the smallest hint of stars in the sky. Pike, ex-NASA, has distinct impressions of Earth from orbit, can still feel the lightness of being of low gravity. It's a memory that Jim likes to revisit whenever he needs to know that their was once a time before the monsters and death.

The drift comes over him, Pike, calm and collected, pressing the weapons control pad for the Pulselauncher. It unlocks and moves to their shoulder, energy crackling as it comes to life. To make this work their aim has to be sure and true, no time for mistakes, just their confidence in each other. With seven kills under their belt the controls to unload the cannon feels easy and right in their palm. 

For Jim, there is nothing more perfect than his connection with the Jaeger, the connection with Pike, than this, settling down to one knee to aim the cannon. Before this, where was he? Somewhere in a refugee camp in Iowa, shaking out his nightmares during the night and fighting through his fear during the day. This is pure. There is simply nothing like piloting a Jaeger. Before him is a problem, one with talons and teeth and deadly intent, a problem he can rectify. He is the solution, _they_ are the solution. 

In the Jaeger he could do anything. Instead of knowing fear when again standing before the ugly face of death, Jim let the thunder-clap of strength surge through him. Purpose, a missing concept in his life outside of _Don't die_ lit up his veins. The constant ghosting of the drift in his mind, support in spite of and because of everything that lays in wait there. There were countless rabbits running around his mind. With Pike, Jim never chased after them. The trust between them cultivated from years of tutelage and the years before when Pike searched for him in every midwest refugee camp made the drift easy, a second skin. Their bond was simply too deep, too constant and forever, too sure for Jim to ever give chase.

Together they breathed in, even their heartbeat is the same.

"Okay, Jim, let's finish this." 

Due to the force of throw and the mass of the monster, when the Kaiju reenters their line of sight the Bandit Chase is ready to unleash the Pulse, dark matter hurling straight toward where vital organs should be. It takes a large chunk out its torso but until the monster hits the water in a lifeless splash they do not release from their position with the Pulselauncher. As per protocol they approach the corpse, taking a double tap with a phaser just to make sure. 

They linger over the remains, taking in the damage and missing parts. Mccoy would likely be pacing the floor of communications, waiting for the call about his prized samples. Neon blue blood poured from multiple wounds. Nearly half its torso was missing. This wasn't exactly mint condition. Jim could already feel the prick of needles in skin from sudden, very important test that needed to run immediately. 

"Should….Should we still bring it in? It's not exactly in perfect working order."

"Well, if he wants it gift wrapped he'll have to come out and do it himself, won't he? Let's bring this atrocity in and tell him we lost the receipt. " 

The beast is heavy, almost the weight of a Jaeger, but easy enough to carry back to the Shatterdome. The ensign at command hailed them but only got two words in edgewise before Bones tore the microphone out of his hand. They'd been sending out some inconsistent frequencies during the drift due to the damage by their core. He questioned them about a long list of ailments including lightheadedness, headaches, and unusual pains, if their suits were still aligned. Everything was still in order and no pain was being transmitted between them in the drift so Bones quickly preceded to drill them about the Kaiju's status and what parts were left. He was likely standing at their hangar now, engulfed within a thick full-body suit for handling Blue in its natural state. 

As they tread through the water to get back to base, Pike laughs. A play by play of the fight runs through his mind, lingering on certain points. "Where the hell did you come up with that? Some television show?"

"Saturday cartoons," Jim laughs. Pike scoffs but Jim distinctly remembers shag carpet and the crunch of cereal in his mouth as a cardboard robot fought against a plastic monster. Pike gives him a look as the image drifts across, shaking his head. "I got you, old man. I know you liked it. Admit it, that was the coolest Kaiju takedown yet. Even better than last time."

Last time involved opening the mouth of a fully armored Category III and shoving their arm down its throat to fire a plasma into its tender insides. Scotty yelled at them later, claiming the acidity of the Blue could have dissolved the Jaeger's finer circuitry but in private pumped him for every detail of the battle. 

Pike rolled his eyes. "We're going to die one day because you wanted to be 'cool'."

"But at least we'll go out in style!" 

 _"Now I know I d'nt hear that. Style don' mean nothin' when a damn Kaiju kills e'eryone, Jim. Or when ya wreck my Jaeger 'cause I'll kill ya after yer dead,"_ Scotty scoffed over the comm. _"But that was damn coo'. I was at de edge of me seat over here. Now what did ye do to me Jaeger? I 'm gon' hafta do massive repairs to the chest thanks ta you two."_

"Aww, Scotty, don't be like that. It just happens." 

_"Aye and it better no' happen again. Get in here ya dumb fool so I can fix 'er up, good as new."_

The Shatterdome was coming into view, where Scotty would access the full damage and yell at Jim accordingly. Pike escaped the barrage every time, citing a wife to make it home to. Sometimes Bones would intercept the engineer from his long list of the ways jim would destroy his metal babies in order to stab Jim with needles. Sometimes Jim would derail the entire conversation by asking about Scotty's new Jaeger tattoos. He recently got the schematics for a Jaeger arm outfitted with a flame thrower on his ribcage. 

"Got it, Mister Scott. We'll be eagerly waiting the new adjustments you'll make. I'm sure she'll purr like a kitten in no time." Scotty sputtered, manic laughter spilling from him not unlike the kind when he was around McCoy but the way he tripped over his words detailing his gratitude was reserved only for the highest of command. 

 Pike cut the connection and they walked in silence toward the base. The immense hangar doors opened before them, dots of the prep team gathering to start repairs and safely disconnect the pilots. The drift surged between them as it always did before disconnection, one last mental tug. Jim felt the solid feeling of home and love wrapped around an image of _Number One turning around to greet him as though he'd only been out to get milk, only the smallest of smiles on her lips but full warmth in her eyes_ and sighed out his own happiness to return home, tinged with the solemn feeling of loss every time they left the Jaeger, the drift, and went back to being people who didn't share a mind. 

The mental connection between them was so strong in those last minutes that Pike sent back the proud feelings of a father to a son, the feelings of a man with no son to a boy with no father, their mismatched family. Words and sentiments unsaid anywhere but within drift, where words were simple and true. Jim sighed.

The Jaeger jolted and swayed into its place in the hanger, the Kaiju corpse left to side where Bones could be seen running around, ecstatic. Jim felt a wetness under his nose. Safely in the hangar, Jim took off his helmet but there was nothing on his fingertips when he drew them away. The sensation didn't leave him. Pike felt it as well, eyes widening as he cupped his nose.

When he drew his hands away they were spotted with blood. Jim registered Pike's confusion then sudden acute fear, loss loss loss, everything falling apart. Vertigo, spinning, Jim was suddenly very winded, acid reflux building in his throat as his head seemed to compact under an immense weight. The drift wasn't so easy anymore. His conn-pad started to beep erratically, the young ensign's voice filtering over them, drenched in fear and concern which faded into countless others, screaming over each other and Jim chased the rabbit.

A category IV tore into the city, explosions, gunfire and screams, so many screams. His mother's last words, cut short. Everything falling apart around him. The ugly face of death looking at him with its six eyes.

Blood darkening his lips, Pike shouted, "Jim! Don't! It's not real! I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere." He unstrapped his legs and ran over to place his hands on Jim's shoulders, steady, always steady, a mountain among men, a rock, an anchor, existing in real time. "It's just a memory, Jim. It's over. It happened and now it's over."

Somewhere above them there are orders to cut the drift. The shaking ground underneath Jim's feet subsides and he's gasping, lungs filling in what felt like his first breath of air in years.

 _"Wat's goin' on in there? Yer drift is join' crazy--Jim? Jim!"_ Scotty, loud, concerned. The damage to the Jaeger could wait. The doors to the conn-pad opened, light from the base filtering in. Someone is messing with his suit, removing the spinal clamp from his back. Even disconnected from the drift Jim couldn't bear to look at Pike. He'd never chased before, hadn't seen those memories with as much clarity since he had night terrors. If they were still connected Pike would feel his fear, his shame and his understanding of the beginning of the end. 

When he was able to breath normally, Jim schooled his face into a plate of armor and stared openly at the blood on Pike's face. A tech let out a cry of shock as she saw it too and then everyone's eyes were on Pike, not because of their successful run but because everyone knew what happens to Jaeger vets after they drifted more than their mind could take. 

There was no recovery from this. It was over. There was no place for a kid who had the lowest drift compatibly Pan-Pacific had ever seen. The shiver of excitement the Conn-pod gave him was gone, replacing it was a familiar feeling, one he could never describe to anyone who had never drifted with him. From the look on Pike's face, sincere grief and an unspoken apology, he knew completely. 

This was the feeling of a boy who finally grasped greatness, purpose, happiness, home, only to have it bleed out of someone's nose. 

Jim would never pilot again. 

\---

 


	2. Sympathy 3000-21

On every wall of the room, large sheets of paper had been taped up haphazardly, some pasted directly over each other while others hung at odd angles. Three or four were long enough that they trailed down to the floor. Some had been completely covered with notes written in red ink with even more notes on paper taped over those. A few even sported giant x's across the entire sheet. Still more had been placed on the floor in some resemblance of a grid but had been stepped on and shuffled so much that they were in complete disarray. Several trashcans were overflowing with crumpled papers, a few of which even sported burns and the entire radius still smelt of smoke. 

In the middle of the mess Doctor McCoy sat shuffling his newspaper at the end of one of the three tables. The only area of empty space in the room surrounded his chair. On the table, just the area around his coffee was free of scraps of paper. The loud crinkle of his newspaper and his thoughtful murmurs broke the silence of the room and his calm demeanor was at odds with the angry, red hot tension between the other two occupants sitting opposite of each other and stared unblinking with the deepest hatred in their eyes. 

"I just cannae believe you, Jim." Scotty finally spit out. "It's like I'm speakin' to one of them pickled brains." 

"They're actually much smarter than the two of you combined," McCoy commented.

Jim slammed his hands on the table. "What's wrong with you? God, Scotty! You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Has the scotch finally eroded away your brain?"

"You know, I would really like a glass of scotch right now," McCoy mused to himself.

Scotty pointed to the door. "Get out! Get out of me office! Get out of my department! Get out of the whole damn dome! Yer crazy, yer a crazy mad man!"

"And you're psychotic!" Jim mimed taking his head and crushing it. "The Yoshimi has to have swords," he seethed. "Anything else would make a mockery of her design!"

McCoy scoffed. "It's a giant four-armed pink robot. I was under the impression that the whole point was mockery." Meanwhile Scotty gaped at Jim, hand to heart in deep offense. 

"The Yoshimi," he started slowly, solemnly. "…was meant ta encompass the power and grace of a hurricane." The most unattractive derisive sound came from the doctor's mouth. "To deny her the spinnin' blades o' glory she so rightly deserves would be the greatest betrayal to the art form." 

"It's a cheap gimmick! There's nothing graceful about bulky loud machinery spinning around. Just think!" He held up his hands, framing a picture. "The Yoshimi is rising out the water, the Blue glowing against her magenta hull. She's a warrior coming home from the front of war, the savior of millions. The sun sets behind her, darkening Yoshimi's silhouette. In her hands four identical blades glint in the light." Jim slowly turns to look at Scotty who has the wide eyes of a man seeing the same vision. 

There is a long moment of silence before Scotty curses and crumples his set blueprints, tossing them toward the trashcan. "God dammit," he says before burying his face in his hands. Jim punches the air and grabs his own set of schematics, kissing it several times before writing in large print FINAL DESIGN with marker in the corner and rolling it up. "I'll get this to sent down to the boys to start building as soon as possible. CHEKOV!" 

A pile of a papers on the next table over stirs and a bleary eyed Chekov emerges, dozens of papers fluttering to the ground. "Yez? Chto sluchilos?" 

"The Yoshimi's finished, that's what happened!"

"Net!"

"Yes! Take this and get to construction asap." Jim handed him the roll, grabbing his face to kiss his forehead. He blanched. "And then take a shower. How long have we been down here?" Chekov gave a confused shrug of his shoulders and slid off the table, taking shaky first steps as he wiped the sleep from his eyes.

"The lot of you haven't left this room at all in four days," McCoys says. "Before that you barely left for two weeks. Too busy drawing your pink robot."

"It's magenta," Scotty wailed.

Jim turns, his face lights up at the sight of him. He hadn't noticed Bones there at all. The doctor folds his paper in half slowly and digs into the medical bag by his feet. Three hypodermic needles are in his hand when he rises. He hits Scotty first, the man barely noticing through his muffled sobs. Though they definitely take on a wounded tone afterwards.

Chekov is treated with more grace, McCoy intercepting him to shine a bright light into his eyes before sticking him. The young ensign gave a cry of pain, rubbing his neck. Bones patted him on the head and sent the boy into the corridor, where Chekov shielded his eyes against the bright lights of the corridor. "Go to sleep after your done, Ensign!" He turned to Jim. "You're a bad influence on that kid. He's only twenty years old." 

"Yeah, yeah, I did crazier stuff than stay up for a few days when I was his age."

"That's exactly what I'm worried about. Who knows what you'll encourage him to do. You're all malnourished and going crazy from lack of sleep. Especially him," he nodded toward Scotty. "I don't know what to do with him. I barely want to touch him."

"Leave me here to die," Scotty sobbed from his new position on the floor. 

"I guess just leave him there to die--gah! Bones! Shit!" Jim clutched his neck in pain. Bones caught his face and shined the light in his eyes, watching the way he followed the light and the way he flinched at the snap of his fingers at Jim's ear. 

"Not bad but not perfect. You'll as right as rain after some sleep." 

Jim swatted at him. "Do you carry those with you every where you go? I swear every time I round the corner you're getting ready to stick me with needles."

"Once a doctor always a doctor," he mused. "Even though I prefer to stick the Kaiju with needles now, I'll always make an exception for my dear friend Jim." He flashed a wide smile and capped his needles. "Maybe I'll stop once you start taking care of yourself. I'm not your nanny, Jim. Sometimes I'm amazed you can even function with that terrible immune system of yours."

"Lesser men would fall?" Jim grinned. He scratched the scruff on his chin, frowning at the feel. He barely noticed it growing while pouring over designs, ripping them up and starting over again. He'd been too busy shave, too busy to even sleep some nights let alone shower. Every moment was spent thinking about how to make the most efficient and deadly Jaeger. Just thinking of the finished Yoshimi design, his design, he smiled.

Bones sent him a withering look. "Don't get ahead of yourself. You've plenty time to contract a terrible incurable disease." 

He bent over to examine Scotty, now snoring on the floor and placed him on his back. Once a doctor always a doctor. In fact McCoy had never fully stopped being a physician at the Shatterdome, always reporting for the early morning shift and checking in on his human patients while the Kaiju ones waited to be dissected and examined a floor down. Who knew the two could ever have so much in common, that a doctor from Small Town, Georgia would eventually use the skills he cultivated to save people to examine Kaiju flesh, slicing them open in exactly the same way. Maybe the skills would still end up saving people, just in a different way. For the most part, they already had.

Jim started piling up the rejected designs, lifting precious designs off the floor, the very same ones he had stepped on hours ago. Next time around they may be the key to a new Jaeger design. 

"What're you doing down here anyway? Aren't you messing around with Kaiju brain synapses?" 

"I _was._ But they're all locked up now." At Jim's confused look he elaborated. "I hid them."

"Bones, you can't hide fifty pound brains. It's kind've obvious. Why would you want to? Where'd _did_ you end up putting them?" The containers that held the living organs were nearly seven feet tall and emitted a distinct yellow light. Not to mention the hum emitted from the machinery that kept them alive. They weren't exactly easy to overlook. 

"Well, while you two numbnuts were busy drawing robots and yelling profanities at each other I dragged the damn things to my room. And to your room," he added. "I ran out of space after six so seven through nine are gonna sleep with you for now on. Aww shit." From his medical bag the unmistakable beep from of a message on his Padd. He took it out and cursed. "They're here."

This was too much for Jim. Too much had happened in the last few minutes. Yoshimi, needles, Bones, Kaiju brains in his room, _Bones._ Out of them all he picked the one that concerned him the most.

"Ya know Bones, did I ever tell you that the Yoshimi is--"

"Your first design? I know Jim, you've told me every day for the past two weeks."

Jim frowned. He barely remembered telling Bones about that. "You take the fun out of everything. I wanna celebrate! I deserve a reward…. Is this brain thing negotiable?" 

"Nope, you'll just have to tough it out. Look Jim," he clasped the other man's shoulder and leaned in close. "I know they weird you out and all and  I wouldn't do it if I had any other choice but right now it's safest place for them to be. It's about to get very tense around the lab with these, these," Bones made a scrunched, uncomfortable face. "Vulcans running around like they own everything." 

Now everything made sense. Jim distantly thought about the numerous changes around the Shatterdome during the past few weeks. Jim hadn't seen more cleaning crews in his life and was pretty sure there had never been so many people actually wearing their full uniform before. The Shatterdome was preparing for guests of honor considering this rare royal treatment.

"But they weren't supposed to arrive for weeks!"

"That was the case weeks ago before you decided to wall yourselves in here." 

Scotty had talked on and on about the Jaeger that was arriving from Vulcan for days, bragging about being selected to run repairs on it. He dug out the old schematics for it and showed Jim everything about it. It was all he could talk about until a Jaeger went down in Anchorage and they needed a replacement quick. It was all a blur after that. Jim hadn't even thought about the people that were accompanying it.

After all, it was the Jaeger they were escorting that was the real guest of honor. Mach V, lightweight, extremely fast and even more deadly. The best interface system ever created along with the most sensitive of circuitry suits. If the pilots sneezed while in drift the Jaeger would wipe its nose. Shatterdome Vulcan's pride and glory: the Enterprise Pacific. 

It defeated the largest category III on record in seven point three minutes of combat, the fastest take down in history. 

Jim didn't know anything about the pilots, only that they refused to let themselves be interviewed and made fighting Kaiju look like child's play. But pilots were pilots and Jim didn't have to watch interviews to immediately know that they were all about. Type A, confidant, private on the verge of unsociable, and didn't need anyone but each other. Likely a couple who had only drifted with each other but sometimes they were close friends or siblings. If the Enterprise hadn't severely damaged the arm and part of its core during combat with a category IV, the Jaeger never would have found its way into the Shatterdome in LA. As it was, Scotty was the only one who could run the repairs, seeing as he designed its warp core. 

"Bones I don't think some rangers are going to be very interested in your brain matter."

"Not them!  The science officer that hitched a very convenient ride. I should know better than to talk to you when you're messing around with robots." Bones grabbed his med-bag and slung it over one shoulder, turning to face Jim with the his perpetual unhappy look of a man about to face certain doom. He had been stomping around more petulantly than usual after they found out the Jaeger was coming for repairs and bringing a friend. Bones had never had an assistant before, outside of the occasional help from Nurse Chapel during some procedures, and barely let Jim poke around his lab. No wonder he'd been so fidgety.

With one final check on Scotty, blanketing him in a never before used lab coat, Jim followed him into the corridor, where it looked like the entire base was headed in the same direction, whispering excitedly.  He caught the word 'Vulcan' several time. They followed the rush. "Although I've heard rumors about the pilots too," McCoy said.

Jim made a face. "The pilots? Pilots don't have anything to do with studying Kaiju. They're just concerned with trying not to die." 

"Oh yeah, like you? Building Jaegers is a far cry from piloting them, Jim." When the herd came to a stop, Bones grumbled and made his way through, pushing and shoving a path for Jim who winked at some perturbed crew members and smiled in apology. "Let's face it, Jim, pilots from Vulcan are a whole new ball game, anything's possible. Even child genius scientists. I heard one of the pilots even worked on the Kobayashi Maru." 

"The Kobayashi? Shit, this guy's serious."

As they made their way to where the giant hangar door was opening, Jim desperately tried to place a face onto this nameless pilot, sure that this genius couldn't have escaped every journalist or news station. And yet, Vulcan was renowned for being extraordinarily secretive about its operatives. The world had no idea about the Kobayashi before it had been in play for well over a month. Before its creation, theorists announced that Kaiju would start emerging through the rift at a rapidly increasing rate. Before long a double event would occur. Then a triple. Even one Kaiju was terrifying enough, to think that two or three could make its way out the rift would be an unimaginable horror.

Which is when the Kobayashi Maru project silently came into being. While some 'secret projects' get out or are generally known, no one had any idea that a machine of that magnitude was being built. Probably due to the possibility that once they flipped the switch, the sheer force of it powering up would blow the entire area and possibly make the rift worse. Jim couldn't imagine being a part of something that could go so disastrously wrong. He also couldn't imagine the cockiness of being involved in it after it went so miraculously right. After all, it scrambles the energy frequencies all around the rift, preventing a massive surge like the one theorized. Whoever it was must be completely full of himself. Jim hoped they weren't more attractive than him. He rubbed the scruff, self-conscious. 

The ship was coming into dock now, massive form of the Jaeger coming into view. Jim stopped in his tracks, unable to take his eyes off of the Enterprise even when Bones had to pull him through the crowd. He'd seen the drafts and the blue prints. He'd even watched a segment on it before. But nothing could rival seeing it for the first time. Jim could almost feel the metal under his hands, still shiny and smooth even through numerous battles with the Kaiju. She had some marks on her though, scrapes against the head, paint missing on the knuckles, a few battle scars.

At level one the Jaeger looked like a skyscraper but where there would usually be corners and sharp angles there were curves. Her graceful body line was the most aerodynamic of the whole fleet, regardless of the Pulse Launchers attached to the back. Jim broke through the crowd, McCoy following. 

"Have you ever seen anything so beautiful?"

"Perhaps the first time a pretty woman really smiles at you. Or the stars from space, I can never decide." 

Jim started, turning to find Pike standing right next to him. "Admiral!" 

He was standing tall in full uniform, every decoration he had on him, looking very regal compared to Jim's four day old ratty shirt and a two week design beard. Pike looked at him from the corner of his eye, a small smile quirked on his lips. "Although the Enterprise is pretty close." 

"You're crazy. She takes the cake," he laughed, turning back to look at the Enterprise fondly. "I bet it's like heaven to pilot her." His stomach churned for the barest moment, a bitter taste on his tongue as he imagined the ease of her controls or the power of her punch, the way the body would shake after taking a hit. He swallowed the feeling down. Pike clasped his shoulder and gave a firm squeeze while Jim avoided his eyes. Pike sighed.

"Well, let's go ask. Come along Doctor, let's go meet your new lab partner. You look very excited to see her." Bones, from his spot in the crowd where he was attempting be as small and still as he could make himself, visibly grimaced. But he followed them, lingering back with Jim when Pike went forward to greet the crew and muttering into his ear the entire time. 

"I think that's her," he hissed. 

Jim squinted. He could make out a blond in blue and another woman that was partially hidden by Pike's figure. Standing closely to her was a taller man, hands resting neatly behind his back which was straighter than a ruler. His uniform was out of the bag perfect but his handsome face was disrupted by a constant frown. Maybe that was just his face. "The Kobayashi scientist?"

Bones gave him a look. "No, you idiot. My new 'assistant'. In blue. Look at the badge on her left shoulder, that's the Vulcan science insignia." The woman in question inclined her head toward them as Pike gestured. Jim felt like a bug caught, stuck in his middle, and examined under her sharp gaze. But she quickly gave a wide smile and wave that made the ends of her hair flutter. McCoy gave a choked inhale.

The other woman, hair tied severely back in a way that made Jim's heart beat harder, looked inquisitively at them. He could now see how utterly beautiful she was even as she narrowed her eyes in an unimpressed look. Definitely a ranger, carried herself in a way that suggested she was used to heavy drift armor, steady gait of her walk warning that she could drop a man before he knew what hit him. Even though her right arm was in a sling Jim was sure that she could beat him up.

"That's the Kobayashi scientist," Jim stated with certainty. 

"Her? What about the guy?"

"He's just the muscle. Look at him, I would bet--" McCoy nudged him, clearing this throat. Pike was leading the three toward them, apparently already making introductions. 

"Ms. Marcus, Doctor McCoy. I understand that you'll be assisting in his research."

McCoy stiffly offered his hand which Ms. Marcus grasped with both hands. "Carol Marcus, Sir. I am very eager to begin working with you. This may be quite forward but I've followed your research into the effects of the Blue since its infancy. Before I transferred to Vulcan I oversaw the application of your solution into the waters near Luzon. It was like watching a miracle. You've saved so many lives." 

With every accented word out of Marcus's mouth McCoy stood a little straighter, making uncomfortable noises in his throat. The back of his neck was red as could be. He cleared his throat for the second time since she started talking, waving his hand in the air while decidedly looking away from her. "It's, it's nothing. Just… doin' my job."  He laughed awkwardly. 

Jim took pity on him. "I, for one, am very eager to begin working on the Enterprise, especially considering her very accomplished pilots." While smiling a smile that got him laid by its recipients 82 percent of the time at the female ranger, he continued. "Especially the work done on the Kobayashi, simply amazing. Jim Kirk," he said, extending the correct hand for her to shake. 

A tight smile developed on her lips. She took his hand, tight grip that challenged his. "Uhura." 

Jim didn't let go, eyes deadlocked on hers. "Is that a last name or…?"

"It's only name you need to know." 

She pulled her hand away and before Jim could follow up another hand was stuck out, attached to man at her side. "Commander Spock," he said. When Jim accepted his hand for an extremely short shake, he continued. "Thank you for the acknowledgement but it is best that no one effort is singled out for praise. It was the obvious outcome of a dedicated team. I was under the impression that we would be met by the head engineer Mr. Scott to begin a dialogue concerning the Enterprise." 

Jim reeled back, taking in this new information. Oh. He talked with almost no inflection. "Uh, he left orders to leave him to die back in the lab. Designing of a Jaeger is pretty intense," he said, winking at Uhura. Well, that was utterly embarrassing, fortunately Spock didn't seem to catch his mistake. Uhura gave him a little smirk, fully aware of his turmoil. 

Spock raised an eyebrow which was startlingly short and angled Jim noticed and looked at McCoy. "As practicing CMO of this shatter dome, does this information not alarm you? Admiral, perhaps we should look in on Mr. Scott."

"Jim's just joking. They've been working night and day on a new Jaeger. It seems the work was…tiring?"

"Tiring's a good way to put it. But not to worry, in a few day's time we'll start working on the Enterprise. I'll be personally on the team. " 

Another eyebrow quirk, Jim was beginning to think that this was a thing of his. "And what exactly is your position here? I was unaware that Mr. Scott had an assistant, Mr. Kirk."

Jim held up a hand, letting out an huff and taking a step toward him. "It's Jim. And I'm not his assistant."

Spock did not step back. "Then perhaps I should speak to someone who is actually in a position of authority within the engineering department."

"I am a position of authority. I work along-side Scotty." Another step forward. There was something about Spock's tone that felt like he was at the receiving end of a lecture from that one teacher everyone hates in middle school. Perhaps it was the way Spock held his head high so that he would have to look down to meet Jim's eyes.

"Are you perhaps suggesting that you are a co-head of the department? There is no such position here, Mr. Kirk." He still did not step back.

"Jim," he bit out, very nearly invading Spock's personal space. The man was very stiff but quirked his head as he held Jim's gaze. They were the nearly same height, he noticed. The hair on Spock's temple was cut perfectly across, not one hair out of line. Jim saw that his ears curved upward into a distinct point. Huh. "Listen, Pointy. I am not an assistant and I am not the head of the department but what I am is a person who'll be very up close and personal with that lovely machine you have there. If you would like to get back inside her and I don't know, continue doing your job, I would suggest that you stand down and let me do mine. Which includes not challenging my authority here."

Now Spock took a step forward, their faces now inches apart. Jim wanted to step back but refused to lose the ground he gained. "Are you suggesting that you would withhold repairs on the Enterprise? You are aware that we are at war, Mr. Kirk," he said, his name may as well be a curse in his mouth. "And that I along with my co-pilot are amongst the front-lines of that war and this insubordination--"

"Spock." The words, spoken by Uhura, stopped the Commander mid-sentence. He looked to her and she to him and Jim knew the look of two people who have seen each other inside out, who could hold a conversation in barely a moment and be completely understood. Jim instinctively looked to Pike.

"I believe you've made your point Commander," Pike said in a voice reserved for talks with the Pan-Pacific committee. At his pointed look Jim took that step back. Bones touched his arm, closer than he was before, apparently ready to jump in if a fist was thrown. Jim realized then that his own hands were tightened into fists, nails leaving marks into the red skin. He shrugged his shoulders. "As it is," Pike continued. "Jim here is a valued member of the department regardless of his position. If you would Commander, I believe you've had a long trip and I would like to show you to your quarters as well as give a tour of the facilities before you retire. You'll be here awhile after all."

With one final look at Jim which he returned with just as much animosity, Spock nodded. "Yes, my apologies Admiral. Please do." 

Carol Marcus, who stood the farthest stood from the conflict, looked visibly downtrodden at the prospect of not immediately beginning work. As they were led away, she waved once last time at McCoy who gave a meek wave back. Jim called out a goodbye to Uhura who didn't even look back, speaking in a low tone to Spock. 

When they were a good distance away, McCoy muttered with a pale face, "I knew it. Oh, she's _awful_."

"What! Marcus is great!" Miles better than Spock who was currently walking away with his hands behind his back once again. Ugh. During the entire exchange Jim didn't see him change expression once. Total robot. Not even the cool kind. He was Artificial Intelligence that turned on his creators. 

"No Jim. She's already begun whittling down my resolve with her, her, womanly wiles!" He let out a frustrated breath. "She'll be back to Vulcan with my research in a week. God! No one's that interested in Kaiju Blue, it has to be an act." He continued muttering about her, shaking his head as he watched her walk away. 

Jim whistled, eyes wide. Bones hadn't reacted this badly to a woman since he developed his severe crush on Nurse Chapel days after they moved from Anchorage. "Well at least you don't have to work with that asshole."

"Says the kettle to the pot." 

"What, no. Bones. He started it," Jim protested. "I was just defending myself against his aggressive attacks."

McCoy hit his arm, giving him a disappointed look. "You called him pointy."

"He has pointy ears, Bones!"

"And great hearing," he murmured, nodding at the retreating group. Spock had turned around to deliver a fierce glare under those odd eyebrows of his. His hair and uniform remained, of course, perfect. Uhura, noticing, turned to glare as well.

Jim sighed, "Shit. I think I fucked up."

\----

It wasn't until they started walking back to their quarters that Jim finally felt fatigue come over him. He wasn't as good at running low on food and sleep as he used to be. Years spent being shuttled to different refugee camps around the country taught him how to sleep lightly or sometimes not at all and how to live on the small rations they gave him. However, even then he would sometimes remember that week he spent in northern California _debris and dead bodies all around him, thinking of nothing as he made his way down a highway but the repetition of don't die, be safe, come back to me_ and knew that things could be much, much worse. 

If he closed his eyes during the right time of night he could still feel the dust on his face, soreness of his bones and that sun, that heat all around him, the heaviness of his steps, and the pounding loud beat of his heart just the same as when he woke up, gasping like he'd never had a lung full of air before.

He bit the inside of his cheek, pain centering him and sharpening the blurred lines of the hall, _here and now, in reality_. Even though it'd been years since he piloted with Pike he still used the mantras that kept him from chasing the rabbit. Chasing memories was just as dangerous now as it was then.

Jim said goodbye to McCoy as he opened his door, ready to skip undressing and just collapse on the bed, before jumping at the sight within and slamming the door. Bones, peeking out from across the corridor and illuminated by the bright glow of organs floating in containers, slowly shut his door while mouthing 'sorry' and not looking sorry at all. Jim sighed slowly, taking in a brave breath before opening the door again.

Three large brains swayed softly in their glorified jars, tentacles brushing up against the glass every so often. Wires from the machines were hooked into every outlet in his room, even replacing some other things like his extra lamps and radio. If Jim wasn't mistaken there was even a small generator buzzing quietly on the floor. He flicked the glass and jerked back when a tentacle or perhaps it was a brain stem of some sort reached toward him and with a 'pop!' attached itself to the glass. 

Even after years of study, no one, not even Bones the leading expert, was certain of how sentient the detached brains were. Jim knew that a human brain would still transmit frequencies for awhile after death and he could only imagine what a brain ten times the size was capable of doing. Was it still thinking? Was it aware of its surroundings? Did it dream? At one point in his life Jim had regularly taken down the gigantic beasts they came from but the questions these tiny things in comparison brought up made his skin crawl in a way that the behemoths never did.

He didn't want to think about the Kaiju as anything but monsters he was ready to destroy. He flicked the glass again, dislodging the tentacle, before covering each up with a sheet. They still emitted a faint glow through the fabric but with his eyes closed he couldn't even tell they were there. 

In bed, Jim felt a pinprick in his mind, a familiar tug of the mental bleed. Closing his eyes and letting his aching, wailing muscles loosen and fade away, the bleed took over, sending Jim awash in memories that were not his. He could never describe the feeling in words, only in half remembered sensory description. Floating in the ocean, salt water in his mouth or trailing a hand over book spines, selecting what he wanted, dust catching the light as the spine cracked under his fingers. 

McCoy used to give him pills that dulled this leftover effect. Technically it was brain damage, technically no one really knew what it was. A post-drift sensory over-load or as rangers liked to call it, ghost drift. For some reason, even without the neural handshake or suit, rangers often found that their minds were still entwined, catching feelings and thoughts that were not their own. You could be sleeping and then suddenly awake with intense hunger because your old drift partner was having lunch halfway across the world. 

Jim loved it. 

Unlike some pilots he knew, who swallowed the pills dutifully, Jim actively attempted to unlock the drift in his mind. Usually after a long day installing Jaeger parts, a grueling task that left him nearly incapacitated at the end of the day, the exhaustion of his body would reach his mind and then, and then--

He could sleep, weightless, under the stars. Somewhere on the shuttle there was rhythmic beeping of sensors. A soft snore near him, quiet shuffle of blankets. 

Those were good days but sometimes the ghost connection just felt like he was missing limbs and Jim walked around awkwardly all day, feet much lighter than he thought they should be. Like he expected the strain of moving in a Jaeger. The days after Pike retired his drift uniform for good were the worst, leaving Jim shaking over the toilet for hours, retching and dry heaving. 

Here and now.

Jim sighed, letting the drift leave him. The generator on the floor kept buzzing, the faint glow of the Kaiju brain containers still vaguely illuminated the room. He ran through the list of things that needed to be done. Tomorrow, he would overlook the start of the Yoshimi. The skeleton had to be built first so that meant another team had to start the task of building the core while another started the plating. He ran the calculations of how much metal needed to be melted down, what would go where, if they had anything left over from the Falcon Twister that wasn't used when they put it together. There was also a dead Jaeger down below, one they just couldn't fix when it was brought in for repairs, that could be melted down. It was a Mach III, very similar design to the Bandit. They could almost be brothers. The thought of melting it down made his stomach churn. 

Along with the Yoshimi, work needed to be started on the Enterprise. One of them had to take precedence. The Enterprise was the crown jewel of the fleet but Anchorage was running on just one Jaeger and that's never a good place to be. Without a Plan B Jaeger if things got bad out in the water, it would get really bad at land. Jim had spent more than two years piloting in Anchorage and still considered it one of his many homes even though it had been three years since he stepped foot in the Shatterdome. There were good people there, ones that didn't deserve the short end of the stick. 

But the Enterprise.

Jim groaned, running a hand down his face. The Enterprise and her perfect white hull. The Enterprise and her asshole pilot, Spock and his stupid perfect hair and posture, who was probably going to make his life hell for the next month during repairs. The Enterprise and her other pilot Uhura, who did her hair just like Gaila before she went out on a mission and made his heart squeeze painfully at the image. 

He rolled in bed, cocooning himself in the blankets. He would just let Scotty make the decision in the morning, he thought to himself, before letting the hum of the tanks lull him to sleep.


	3. Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took long to get out. I went on vacation for awhile and that set me behind a few weeks. So have this extremely long chapter that's actually longer than the past two chapters combined! It'll have to tide you over while I go back to college but expect the following chapters to be about this length.

* * *

 

While the factions within the Shatterdome weaved in and out of each other, in the cafeteria lines were drawn. Jim, being himself, ignored these lines to sit wherever he pleased. For others though, the teams they worked in became especially apparent during designated eating hours and revealed much when every part of dome had to be in close quarters. The two Jaeger teams at the dome, Wildfire Fever and Olympus Strider, had permanent residence at the tables at opposite corners of the room. Their tech teams buzzed excitedly around their pilots, sometimes yelling at the table, sometimes shouting across the room at the other Jaeger team and often coming to a head in the middle of the cafeteria where spit spewed along with insults.

Several fistfights had broken out between the two, some of which Jim participated in because how dare you insult 60's rock and roll that shit was golden, but the scuffles in corridors, lobbies, and men's restrooms were never taken very seriously. When the two Jaegers were out together in the water they moved in perfect synchronization. Bait and hook. Two boxers dancing around the ring to create an unstoppable tag team against the Kaiju. Their record was impressive enough that a friendly fist or two between the teams was overlooked.

They were two of the oldest Jaegers on duty, nearly identical Mach II's, made within the same year, given to Rangers who even graduated together. The Rangers themselves had a long history together being rivals in competing wrestling clubs. Rumor had it that their entrance into the Jaeger Program had to due with avoiding jail time. 

Scotty was sure that the four of them were all drift compatible and had approached them with a radical idea for a neural bridge between four pilots. They declined immediately. Though they were a certain kind of crazy, they were not the brand of insanity that would try something like that. The bridge between two minds could be dangerous enough and no one knew what would happen if four people tried to share one consciousness. 

It was shame though, the design for the circuitry system was the most complex Jim had ever seen. And it expanded on the pons, the neural bridge, in a way that no other had imagined before. Scotty would revolutionize the way Jaegers are built if only the higher ups would let him test it out. As it was, though his ideas constantly broke new ground, it was often too dangerous to experiment with outside of theory. 

When Jim dropped in on him that morning, Scotty had been wide awake for hours examining the the plates of armor that absorbed waste heat. A detailed schedule of deadlines and checkpoint dates for both Jaegers were scrawled on a small piece of paper on the wall. As Jim scrutinized them he saw that most dates coincided with coincided with each other. The Yoshimi would still take a month even at their back-breaking schedule and the Enterprise had such complicated circuitry systems that maintenance would need to work at a snail's pace, bringing the two Jaegers to completion within days of each other.

"You sure you want to do that?" Jim asked. They'd built two Jaegers at once before and, memory serving, they had three full shifts working 24 hours all day, every day for more than a month. It was grueling work, building a Jaeger. Part of the reason why he had immediately jumped aboard when given the chance three years ago. 

"Aye, why no'? Give the boys downstairs a good work-out."  

In every J-team Scotty headed the Jaeger techs literally slept where they worked some nights. Despite this, a considerable amount always requested transfer when Scotty was reassigned to the next Shatterdome. They talked shit, gave shit, and sometimes were a piece of shit but they knew a genius when they saw it and would follow anyone who loved Jaegers as much as they did. 

And Scotty was beside himself with joy over the Enterprise. The first few hours of the work day were spent just running his hands over its plating and inspecting the wires and pistons by hand. Even in his red jumpsuit it was hard to see him, red dot moving around the giant figure like an ant crawling on a human hand. 

The technicians from Wildfire and Olympus were similarly dazed by its inner workings. Mach V's were an entire world away from the Mach II's that protected the California coast line. People Jim had never seen before gathered to watch as plating was taken off and inspected for the full extent of the damage. When the chest was removed to expose the damaged core, the group emitted an audible gasp from the ground floor. Even the Olympus and Wildfire pilots, who liked nothing but beating up Kaiju and each other, whistled from level 20 as they clapped their hands in solemn appreciation of beauty. Even damaged, the warp core was stunning to behold.

During this Jim had kept an eye out for her surly pilots, cold and cruel Spock and the cool and confidant Uhura, but even as the repair team started running amok in her systems, they did not appear. Jim attended every maintenance check and repair during his time with Bandit Chase, overprotective of the metal machine like a parent to a child.

The drift wasn't just with your partner after all. The meld went deep into the machine until both pilot and Jaeger were one. He'd heard whispers from veteran engineers that the machines experienced a ghost drift too, twitching and jerking in memory of their pilots just as their own bodies felt the machine around them in every step they took. 

He checked again and again while pretending to examine wires and tubes in the mangled right arm. Always scanning the floors for perfect posture and those stupid odd ears but he never saw or heard of any mention of them when he asked around. No one had seen them since Admiral Pike showed them to their quarters. 

Until lunch, that is, where they sauntered in, steps in perfect unison and wearing crisp grey uniforms.

Jim watched them with narrowed eyes as they moved though the crowds, adrenaline pumping as he remembered the way Spock talked down to him less than 24 hours before. He expected to run into him at the repair bay, ready to start fresh and be cooperative and friendly. But he also expected that the pilots respected their machine enough to visit her during surgery and their absence was something he just couldn't forgive. Even Uhura, Uhura with her hair tied back, Uhura and her lack of respect for the Enterprise. The gall. He tore into his bread, all teeth and crumbs. 

The two of them were liquid, weaving in and out of the crowds without ever brushing a shoulder. It helped that everyone moved around them, breaking apart so that they could enter, watching and whispering as they passed. Even the Jaeger teams hushed to a low murmur to watch their every move. All except for Bones who continued on with his rant against his new assistant. 

"…and I said 'why don't you organize the data readings', you know to to get her out of my hair, and by the time-- Jim, are you even listening to me?"

Jim didn't take his eyes off Spock and Uhura, now walking toward a far empty table. "Uh huh, yeah Bones. Data readings. Then what?" 

A pause. "Well, I came back and not only had she finished the data but she prepped the lab for procedure! Can you believe it? Not even a day and she's already taking over the lab," McCoy violently stabbed at the remaining lettuce on his plate. "Next thing you know I'll be back in Georgia reading about the amazing Miss Marcus. Did I tell you she had reorganized the shelves? By type and then alphabetically and then by amount?"

"That sounds truly horrible," he replied, twisting his head just enough that could watch the Enterprise crew without interruption. From their short encounter yesterday Jim already knew that the two had spent many hours in the drift together. Today, just from the way they walked together, he could see that conscious nor not they constantly made space for the other next to them. A healthy amount of space. 

McCoy sighed. "It's awful, I honestly don't know how I'm going to be able to work under these circumstances." 

"Uh huh." 

Even as they sat next to each other there was space enough to sit another person between them. Not that anyone would try. The pair radiated a 'Don't make me ask you to leave' vibe that made even the boldest and friendliest of them rethink sitting at their empty table. The two leaned in absently toward each other, angled just enough that their bodies were open to the other while being closed off to everyone else. 

"And the questions! Every second its 'Can I help with that?', 'Where are your tests results?', 'How do you intend to isolate the blood plates considering their silicon nature,'" McCoy spoke with a shrill, heavily accented voice and moved his entire body as he talked in some horrendous imitation of the woman. Jim didn't catch the cockney accent Bones obviously thought Marcus had. "Every time I turn around she's watching me, taking notes, handing me things. Buttering me up."

"That's impossible, Bones."

"But is it? People don't just leave Vulcan, Jimbo. Not to work with Kaiju cutters like me." McCoy followed his line of sight, glancing at the pilots. He gave Jim a knowing look. "And they're not normal pilots either. Cocky, probably assholes like usual. But usual pilots don't come with a doctorate and repair jobs don't just bring along extras."  

Spock leans down to speak into Uhura's ear and she laughs, full, uninhibited. 

Jim had been around enough pilots to be able to figure them out, he even thought he had the two of them pegged at first, lovers, long time couple. But the way they moved together didn't suggest intimacy, not quite, not how the drift typically moved with couples. He'd seen how married pilots moved as  one person, forgetting that they existed in separate bodies. Spock and Uhura never touched each other, at least not in public. They didn't have the playful repertoire of childhood friends. But they weren't distant either. Not like begrudging graduates who were drift compatible. Bones was right, they didn't adhere to typical pilot profiles. 

But regardless that, from the reports he'd seen, the videos he'd watched of them in action, their drift in the Enterprise must be incredibly deep to fight that well. Even with the neural interface doing a chunk of the work, it wasn't easy to take down as many Kaijus as they had without a significant bond. Something held their minds together in the Enterprise. But perhaps it had to do with their training at Shatterdome Vulcan. Being the only privately funded Dome in the Pacific they could afford to do things differently. 

Jim squared his jaw, narrowing his eyes at the thought. Bones was right to be suspicious. Vulcan, the only outlier in all of Pan-Pacific. Secretive, uncooperative, elite. They belonged to no country, answered to no one. Pan-Pacific was created to make a unified effort in saving the world and Vulcan was the black sheep in the background.

Uhura happened to glance around the room. She met Jim's eyes with a surprised look that quickly turned into an amused smirk. She nudged Spock with her good arm as she looked away. He did not meet Jim's eyes with the same mirth. There, in his eyes, was the same look as before, the same look Jim registered in Carol for one fleeting moment.

A scientist's eye, giant over a magnifying glass as it studied a small interesting insect. Spock raised his brow when Jim did not look away. Even tilted his head to the side. Jim still held his eye, not even daring to blink. Something about him made Jim want to punch him in the face. Maybe it was the way he adjusted his uniform so that it stayed crisp as he sat, maybe it was because he was the only one who wore a uniform to lunch. Besides his partner, of course. 

During this, Bones was absently stabbing away at his salad again, muttering to himself. "…damn salad, damn Marcus, damn Vulcans running around, can't take no for an answer. You'd think after the last time they'd finally let it go but no," he lifted up a piece of lettuce, biting it off angrily. "They have to bug me even more. Bastards."

Jim had to do a double-take, finally looking away from Spock. "What?" He lowered his voice to a harsh whisper and leaned in close. "What did you say?"

Bones stopped mid-way through eating another forkfull. He glanced this way and that, not liking being on the receiving end of Jim's intense stare. "They're bastards?"

"You know what I'm talking about Bones. Have they been trying to move you to Vulcan? Why didn't you tell me? Bones!"

"It's not that big of a deal," he hushed Jim, motioning to keep it down but his eyes were somewhere else, widening quickly. 

"And now they sent these assholes to bully you into going with them? Bones!"

"Jim," he hissed, making subtle but frantic gestures. "Shut up!"

"No, Bones, we're talking about this, why didn't you tell those bastards to-"

"Hello, Commander," McCoy announced loudly. "Did you enjoy your lunch?"

Jim looked up. Both Uhura and Spock were standing at the end of their table. Uhura glanced at him in a silently judging and yet pitying look. He couldn't escape the feel that he kept disappointing her. Spock didn't even look at him, body turned to face McCoy as he answered. 

"Yes, indeed. It was…quite satisfactory." The words and facial expression didn't quite match up. He stood with his hands behind his back and Jim saw that his fingernails were blunt. "I wish to apologize for yesterday." Jim sat back on the bench, crossing his arms as he waited for Spock to turn and apologize to him. "Before I was…distracted, I wanted to congratulate you on your achievements as well. I tested your hypothesis for any falsities some time ago and found your solution to be sound and quite fascinating." 

McCoy gave a terse smile. "Years in the field and I'm still being checked for bad math, thanks." 

"You are welcome," Spock replied earnestly. Jim remained gritting his teeth and glaring at him. The points of his ears were not as exaggerated as he remembered but they had enough of the shape and tip that in his mind Jim started creating a depository of insults concerning elves. "I trust that you will not hesitate to ask for my abilities in any matter at your lab. Given my credentials, I am more than qualified to assist." 

"You know, funny thing those credentials," Jim chimed in, despite the warning look McCoy sent him.  "I wasn't aware that pilots needed a doctorate nowadays. Is the competition really that bad? Or are they just running out of Rangers and had to resort to recruiting lab coats?" He gave a smile that dared Spock to ignore him. 

With a stiff look back Spock answered, hesitant. Evidently he hoped to escape without having to speak with him. "My credentials had nothing to do with my selection as a Ranger."

"Right, right but see, that's the odd thing. I would think that you'd put that big brain of yours toward research, or whatever it is you do, instead of playing rock 'em sock 'em Kaiju." Jim grinned, miming a boxing position and gave a one-two jab but his eyes were dark and his smile spiteful. "Come on, level with me." 

Spock turned to him fully now and after a short look at Uhura, he spoke. "I do not understand your interest."

"I used to be a pilot myself, you could say I have an interest in why a lab coat like you would put on the drive suit." It was petty, he knew, to take out his frustration with McCoy and Vulcan trying to steal him away but there was just something about Spock that made him want to do it anyway. 

Spock raised an eyebrow, mouth a thin line. "Perhaps the reason why you are no longer a pilot is the same as why I am one now."

Jim opened his mouth and instead screwed his mouth into an angry imitation of a smile. The reason he was no longer a pilot? Maybe he was just never a good one to begin with. Bad pilots were the reason Jaegers went down, after all. That's what the media liked to say. Jim had a feeling those words were about to come out of Spock's mouth too. 

"It was a pleasure meeting you Doctor." Uhura stepped in between the two of them to address the McCoy, her voice business-like, much like Pike's during difficult board meetings. "I also wanted to congratulate you on your research. I translated it into eight languages when it came out. It was a pleasure each time." She shook the doctor's hand. "Spock, let's go. See you around, Kirk." Her eyes lingered on him, longer than they had before. Jim felt pricked, examined.  It was like she was seeing him for the first time and she had a hard time looking away. 

The two of them walked away in perfect unison. The farther they were the louder the cafeteria became with gossip and shouts about the two pilots. Jim pierced his food with his fork as McCoy's brows came together.

"Is this going to happen every time the two of you are in the same room? You're two for two now, Jim."

"I had it under control," he grumbled around a mouth full of food. "It's just something about that guy." He shoveled a few more bites into his mouth, chewing a few times before he just couldn't take it any more. "Why di'nt you tell me 'bout Vulcan? Bones!" Jim swallowed. "You're supposed to tell me about these things! You can't just throw me on a plane again. I have to know beforehand."

"I'm not going to throw you on any plane, Jim! I'm not getting on one either. Dammit, Jim," Bones let out a long sigh. "You know I don't want to move base again. When Vulcan asked I said no. When they asked again I said hell no. I said no so many times they sent someone personally to get me to go." 

"That's what you think Carol is doing? I thought you were just being dramatic."

"That's why I had to hide my brains!" He groaned, massaging at his temples. "No one should ever have to say that in their lifetime. The fact is Jim, I don't know if that's what they're doing. They could make off with my research. They could hog-tie me, slap a stamp on my ass, and mail me to Vulcan. They could sincerely want to support my research and sent me an overly qualified assistant. I don't know but fuck 'em if they think I'm going to work at Vulcan. Once you go to Vulcan you don't come back." 

And McCoy had every reason to come back. LA was a solid four hour plane ride from Georgia, where his daughter waited for her father to come back from war with the monsters that filled her nightmares. Disappearing into Vulcan wasn't exactly in his plan. 

Many others had though. Vulcan was headquarters for a large amount of the Kaiju Science department. Scholars from all over the world moved to Vulcan where the best labs and research teams awaited them. To be honest, it was a hit for the Shatterdomes to be missing the majority of their K-Science but there were a few stragglers who refused to abandon their post, like Bones, that kept them running. There was too much to learn on the field, they said. Too much live material to leave for better air conditioning. Bones was from Gerogia, he liked it hot. 

Which was fine with Jim. Where his crew went he was going to follow, whether or not he was cordially invited to, it hadn't stopped him before. If Bones was somehow shipped to Vulcan on a barge, he'd be right there beside him.  He wouldn't be left behind this time, that's for sure. Jim let it go and finished his meal in a comfortable quiet.

 

\----

 

After lunch, Jim met Scotty down at the Yoshimi hangar where he handed over the ham sandwich he smuggled out in the pocket of his jacket. Scotty had refused to go to lunch, elbows deep in a circuitry panel and swearing up a storm. Which was no different than any other time they'd worked on Jaegers together. When Jim had first joined the department he had a crash course in multi-lingual swearing and its multiple meanings when applied to constructing giant metal monsters. 

There were engineers from all over the world in their dome and they held the most techs due to being the primary repair bay on this side of the Pacific. Some were like Jim and had never known a day without the threat of a Kaiju attack and others had vague memories of a childhood before but some of the older crew told stories of swimming in the Pacific, fearless in their young bodies and immortal in the sunlight. More than twenty years of war had created a generation that never knew the ocean. 

Scotty had vague recollections of a time before then but was also too young to fully comprehend the danger of the Kaiju. Instead he imprinted on Jaegers from a young age. He built small robots in his garage and doodled robots on his history tests before he could build Jaegers in Shatterdomes and have vintage Jaeger designs and schematics tattooed onto his skin. Foxtrot Venus was forever entangled with a Kaiju on his side while Chrome Hydra was awash with the Blue across his shoulders. A special homage to the imploded Endeavor Kelvin took over a large portion of his back. It was a sight to behold. 

They were currently covered up entirely by his red work coveralls, pants sprinkled with a mixture of crumbs and grease. In the foundry below them, basic parts to create the skeleton of a Jaeger were being created as they finished up one last bit to go on the Yoshimi. 

"I don't know Scotty, I'm thinking just keep it basic, classic. I don't want to clutter her up with stickers and do-dads."

"These ain't no do-dads, Jim! Every Jaeger has one!"

"Exactly," Jim winced. "They're tacky. We need to be fresh, new. The Yoshimi is no regular Jaeger. She'd give the Enterprise a run for its money," he added in a mock whisper. It was possible. He and Scotty often discussed well into night which Jaegers would win in a fight. They both theorized that the older, slower Jaegers would still defeat the newer ones simply because of a superior drift between the pilots. 

"Oh no. No, no, no. Well maybe," Scotty conceded with a grin. Then it fell as he reconsidered. "But…I have it under good repute that the Enterprise is much more than she looks. Not that we're actually allowed to look," he mumbled, rubbing an erasure on the decals they'd sketched to go on the Yoshimi. 

Jim leaned in close, lingering until Scotty fidgeted uncontrollably and glanced all around the room to make sure no one was listening. "I wasn't gonna tell ya, I'm not even supposed ta know but I have clearance so I have to know but they didn't want me to know," he rambled. "But there is some freaky shit under her hood." 

"Like what?"

"Like missiles I haven't even seen before! I don't even know if it has clearance!" Scotty gave another furtive look around the area and lowered his voice again. "If the Enterprise hadn't damaged the arm I'd've never found out. There's a lot missing in the schematics too, parts that were just completely blacked out or, or pages that are missing! Completely missing!" 

Jim narrowed his eyes. Vulcan was starting to become even more clouded in secrets, secrets he didn't like. There were reasons why weapons had to be cleared before usage. After dropping half a dozen nuclear bombs on the Kaiju at the beginning of the breach and dealing with the effects of Blue in the water, land, and air, no one wanted to inflict more damage to the Earth. Everything was tested to make sure that what hurt the Kaiju wouldn't hurt the world. 

There was no point in winning this war if there was no planet to left to save.

"Bones thinks that Vulcan sent Carol Marcus to take his research back to Vulcan," he whispered. "And he thinks that the pilots are up to something too."

Scotty's face slowly turned from being disgruntled to one of sudden revelation. "Oh." His eyes widened, putting together pieces of the puzzle that Jim didn't have and couldn't make out. "This all makes more sense now." Scotty quickly became squirmy in his seat, not looking at Jim at all. Jim scanned his face, finding traces of guilt and nervousness. Jim cursed.

"God dammit scotty, not you too."

"I di'nt wan' ta tell ya, Jim!" He floundered. "I said no! I said no each time. That's why I was only allowed ta design the core of the Enterprise. They didn't some outsider knowin' ev'rythin'."  I wasn't gonna just, just-- leave! Not after last time," he added. He was still fidgeting in his coveralls, swiping at the crumbs on his lap while he continued to avoid Jim's eyes. 

Jim rubbed his eyes and face, exhaling a long breath. It didn't surprise him that Scotty had been getting calls to transfer. Being the premier Jaeger designer came with its beck and calls. He fell back into his chair. "Well, shit. Is anyone else getting calls that I should know about?"  He shook his head in the ridiculousness of it all but Scotty squirmed in his chair. Jim froze. "Who?"

"Now don't overreact. And don't interrupt." When Jim started to protest, he pointed a stern finger. "Promise." Jim relented and he continued, fiddling with a pen nervously. "Now I know we were thinking about the Kalvak twins--"

"Yeah, yeah, the girls from Noatak. They're perfect!" 

"Jim! Ya promised!"

"Sorry," he muttered, sitting back into his chair again.  

Scotty fumbled for a minute on the next words to say. "They're definitely still…in the running. But, well, the Admiral was….thinking of someone else, yeah. Yeah. They thought of a really great candidate fer her, probably. It would be a… decisive misuse of resources ta not consider this person." Scotty was definitely repeating someone else's words. "After all, this person had showed exemplary ability in every position he has held. It…makes sense," he finished weakly.

Jim's eyes grew wide, then hardened. "No." 

"Jim." 

"Absolutely not! What the hell are they thinking? He's just a kid."

"You were a pilot when you were his age!"

"That's different, Scotty! I wasn't a kid!" Jim jumped out of his chair, pacing angrily around their desk. Around them technicians stopped their work to see what the common was about. Noticing, Jim halted to a stop, breathed in heavily and sat down again. The noises started up again and Jim took that extra time to gather himself. "You can't make him become a pilot," he said evenly. "It's his choice." 

Scotty winced. 

"Goddammit," Jim cursed. "He's obviously not in his right mind."

But the only one who was not in his right mind was Jim. He could take Bones and Scotty being wined and dined to new headquarters but he wouldn't stand for someone like Chekov being thrown into a bloodbath. He was too young, too smart to tossed into battle. When Jim met him he was fifteen and designing new tracking sensors to predict where the Kaiju were going to surface. Jim had given him his first fighting lessons, knocked him down with a Kwoon fighting stick enough times so that no one else could knock him down with fists. A few years later and Jim watched him grow into his shoulders, watched him train to become an officer in the LOCCENT. His first mission was Jim's last. 

Checkov had just turned twenty a few months ago. 

Jim had once been twenty years old but he was never as young as Checkov was at twenty. Jim hadn't been young since he was thirteen and felt everyday since with arms and legs like bricks. At twenty he had first stepped into a Jaeger and at twenty three he stepped out for good. But he knew others who were not so lucky, who died on their very first run. Pilots didn't retire from the field, they died. 

It is with this mindset that he leaves Scotty at the end their shift and, considering the time and the day, runs across the Shatterdome to hit the elevator in Deck A. He doesn't make any effort to cover up his labored breathing as the doors open to reveal Pike. 

"Jim," he says. "I expected you sooner." 

"I ran into some crowds," Jim pants, entering. "They slowed me down." 

Together they ride down for three floors in silence until Jim catches his breath. "I guess you know what I'm about to say, huh," Jim says quietly after he presses the button to stop the lift. The Admiral makes a noncommittal noise and Jim knows precisely the look on his face without even turning to see. One of contemplation, patience, if not the smallest hint of sadness. His usual face whenever Jim came into his line of sight. 

"I do," he says. "I knew as soon as I signed off on Chekov's training." As Jim sighs he continued. "I'll let you make your argument though." 

Now Jim turns to look at him, meeting his eyes. If they still drifted, Pike would know precisely each argument, his true feelings, his real reasons. But they don't drift any longer and Jim has to string them all together in words he thinks will work. 

"He's never even seen a Kaiju up close." 

Pike shook his head. "Plenty of Rangers haven't before they sign up and they do just fine. You'll have to do better." 

"He's still a kid, Pike."

"We've taken in younger, Jim."

JIm is quiet for a moment. 

"I don't want him to die." 

It is Pike's turn to be quiet. "Jim," he says. "The fact of the matter is that… that it doesn't matter anymore. A few years ago that would have meant something but in the past year three cities have been breached. Three cities, Jim." Pike paused, letting this sink in. Jim knew that, he read all of the reports. He knew that many people died, despite the precautions, despite the shelters underground, despite everything the past twenty years has taught them. Every place on the coast line was still at risk. 

"The Shatterdomes aren't what they used to be. The only thing keeping us open is our ability to take the Kaiju down, even if they breach the cities. And to keep those numbers up, anyone, and I mean anyone, who shows talent is going to put a suit on. That includes Mr. Chekov. If he has drift compatibility, he's going in that Jaeger. Word has gotten around about him, he's not our little Russian secret anymore. A mind like his could do wonders in a machine like that." 

"Anyone, huh," Jim mused, hands balled up in fists so tight that it hurt. He stared hard into Pike's eyes. "What about me then?"

There it was, that contemplating, patient, sad face of his. "What about you, Jim?"

"I'll go instead of him! I designed this thing, I could pilot it better than anyone else! Just give me--"

"Jim." 

Jim hated the way Pike's face switched into something like pity and schooled his own into something less of an open wound. Pike wouldn't stop looking at him so earnestly, wouldn't relax into a posture that was more informal, wouldn't give him one more chance to prove that he couldn't do it after all, stopped giving chances awhile ago, and did not, did not, did not, no, Jim refused to believe that he understood the meaning behind every syllable in Jim's words.  

He bit the inside of his cheek and tore his eyes away from the Admiral, taking in deep breaths. 

Pike talked softly. "If we don't keep knocking the Kaiju down as soon as they come up, we'll be pulled. There's talk of a wall, Jim. To just move inland and nuke everything that makes it past the coast. Imagine the entire coastline from Anchorage to Lima as a boneslum." 

Jim drew in a breath, imagining it. He'd been to the one in Alaska, an entire town built around the skeleton of a category II Kaiju under the logic that lightning doesn't strike twice and neither would a Kaiju. As safe as it might be, only the poor lived in boneslums. The buildings were falling apart as soon as they were built and many children had birth defects from the radiation of the nukes it took to take the beast down. The entire west coast was already a version of that. The more Kaiju attacks there are, more prices for homes went up in Montana, or Oklahoma, or Iowa and many had to leave their homes in the east to move to Oregon or Alaska where land was cheap and life was hard. 

It was dangerous to live on the coast where the threat of being crushed under a Kaiju was real and happened often.

Years ago there were multitudes of refugee camps in the midwest, south, and northeast. They offered a safe place for those whose entire lives had been destroyed. After the mass migration from west to east, they all filled up and now there was nowhere left to go. You had to know someone to get somewhere and rations these days made opening up your home harder than one would like. The refugee camp Jim had stayed in was one of the last to close. Only the name of his parents got him past the doors and even then his stay didn't last too long. Not even for James T. Kirk could anyone find a bed for him to sleep in.

Everyone moving inland was a farce and Jim knew it, Pike knew it, even the other committee members knew it. The only people moving inland were those that could afford it. The rest would be left to perish under the rainfall of bombs with the Kaiju. 

The thought filled him with rage, with bitter bile rising from his stomach. He should be doing something, he should be piloting a Jaeger and protecting the coastline, not…drawing pink robots. The elevator shook back into use and even though Pike looked like he wasn't done speaking to him, Jim excused himself as soon as the doors opened. He walked down the corridor with his hands in fists, feeling like a teenager again, begging for a fight, for a bloody nose, any amount of pain to forget, forget, forget. He walked around aimlessly until he saw a crowd gathering outside of a room.

Through one of the windows he could see two figures circling each other, hanbōs in hand. With a hardening heart Jim realized that it was Pavel Chekov, that this was his Kwoon trial for drift compatibility. They'd been working on the Yoshimi for such a long time that Jim had never asked Chekov about anything else, was never available to talk him out of this. It never occurred to Jim that Chekov would use the skills that Jim taught him to see if he was the right material to pilot a Jaeger.

Chekov's mind, constantly running overtime with variables, was doing exactly as it always did. Jim watched as he took down the first two challengers easily, anticipating their attacks just as Jim taught him to. There was the tell-tale sign of hesitation before he moved, weighing every response before he acted. When he did act though, it was forceful, quick, and challengers were down before they knew what was happening. Jim thought he could have taken them several moves earlier and yielded less counter strikes until he realized that Chekov was attempting to give them enough time to acclimate to his style. It was hard to keep up with a mind like his.

When the first three managed only to get two hits on him in total, Jim felt a surge of hope that no one would be found suitable for him and that someone else, anyone else, would be selected to pilot the Yoshimi instead. 

The proctor called in the next partner. It was someone Jim vaguely knew. Probably from the LOCCENT or maybe it was communications. Where ever Jim knew him from, the challenger settled into his stance, not moving as Chekov took the first steps to circle him, attempting to find his weaknesses and strategy. 

But just as Chekov planted his feet firmly to deliver what would be his first point of the match, the challenger strikes first. It is quick, swift, and would be a crushing blow to the sternum if he followed through. The hanbō stops just short of making contact, surprising both Chekov and the crowd that had gathered to watch. These matches were free entertainment. Something that, outside of sex, was sorely missing around the militant Shatterdome. 

The proctor calls point while the two pause and then engage in a battery of assaults, each parried before the next counterstrike. Three quick strikes from Chekov are each deflected, the last is pushed back on him, forcing Chekov into a defense position as the other tries to knock him off balance. After a tense moment, Chekov is again on the offense. With every attack he has to block one in return. Soon enough he has his first point of the match, a swing to his challengers head, but they are both sweaty from exertion. The proctor tells them both to take it easy, that it's just a test, not a fight. But it's as though they don't even hear her, going right back into a ruthless regiment of attack, block, attack attack, dodge, block. 

Jim shakes his head, livid. This is exactly what he hoped wouldn't happen, exactly what the Kwoon was invented to seek out. They're evenly matched. Even from here Jim can see the curved lip of a smile on Chekov's face. It's undeniable that they're drift compatible. 

"Kid's good."

Jim had registered a presence behind him halfway into the match but failed to care about it until that very moment. Uhura stepped to his side, right arm still in its sling though she had removed her stiff uniform in favor of a simple outfit with a red leather jacket with an Enterprise Pacific button pinned to the lapel.

"Yeah, he is," Jim finally admits. He is still angry about this, frightened by what it means. 

Beside him, Uhura is quiet for a moment.  "He's young though. He doesn't have the heart to be a pilot, despite how smart they say he is." At Jim's look she gives a small smile. "What? You hear things. Even at Vulcan."

"I bet we were all like that at first, look at us now." It's words that have been said to him all day, to repeat them burns. 

She turns to him, head held high and with such contempt that it makes Jim take a second look. "Yeah," she says slowly, with a low voice. "Look at us. You know, there are so few retired pilots in the world. Seems that you either die in Jaeger or in a hospital not long after." 

Uhura pauses, and tilts her head just as Spock did earlier that day, a habit learned in the drift no doubt. "So? What's your reason for quitting? Was your partner pulled out? Or were you just not good enough to cut it in the ring anymore?" She doesn't even wait for him to respond, walking away from him, just slowly enough for him to to shout after her. 

"I was a great pilot." 

The words taste bitter in his mouth. 

Uhura laughs as she swings into another Kwoon training room, this one empty. Jim follows. By the time he entered she had already taken off her boots and jacket, rolling her shoulders back as she walked across the room. Jim slowly unlaced his own boots as she talked.

"Oh I know," she says as she picks up a two hanbō from the wall with her good arm, tossing one to him and twirling the other in her hand. "I never could beat your simulation score, James Tiberius Kirk. What was it? Something like fifty drops, fifty kills?"

"Fifty-five each, actually." 

Uhura shrugs. "But just because you had a good simulation score doesn't mean you were actually a good pilot." 

"Yeah, you better?"

"I know I'm better. Bet I can beat you with one arm in a sling." 

"Let's see it then." 

With no hesitation Uhura strikes first, swinging for his head. Jim catches it just in time and is surprised by the strength of her attack. She doesn't pause at all, twisting away to deliver a blow to his back. Unlike in Kwoon trials her stick makes contact, toppling him over into one knee and in the sharp awareness of pain Jim knows that this is a fight, a test, not a conversation. 

"One, zero," she says, taking an open offensive stance several steps back from him. "Better keep up." 

Jim stands again, shifting his weight forward. They take several steps around each other. This time Jim swings first, two swift attacks that are both caught. When she pushes him off and attacks he knows that he could use her limited mobility against her but instead he blocks her attack and responds with one of his own, eventually working his way to swipe her feet from out under her. She comes crashing onto her back. "One, one," Jim pants as he hovers over her.

Uhura swung her hanbō hard at his feet, knocking him over as well. "Two, one," she grinned, rolling back onto to feet. As Jim jumps up, he sees that some of the crowd from next door has moved to watch them but has no time to register faces before Uhura lunges again. Jim sees her move before she makes it and dodges, twisting around until he's at her back, hanbō hovering inches away from her head. He knows that she would have followed through but that had never been his style. "Two, two," he grins. "Think you got me wrong?"

Several swift moves and she knocks his stick out of his hand, hanbo like a blade to his throat. They are inches from each other. "I don't get anyone wrong," she whispers. "You think you're better than everyone else, that rules don't apply to you. You make up your own on the way. You make rash decisions and suffer the consequences. It was right of you to stop being a pilot, you would have just killed yourself and your co-pilot in that Jaeger." She releases him, still looking at him dead in the eye and crouches into her stance. "Three, two." 

Jim picks up his stick, twirls it in his hands and this time he is the one to attack first. He'd been holding back before, not putting as much strength into his hits, not moving as fast as he could. Though Uhura wasn't a having a conversion, he still wanted to talk. But that was over. He was done talking. After three hits, he had her scrambling, body stuck in a defensive position against the barrage of attacks. He didn't give her any openings instead just wore her down until she made a mistake. When a parry left her body open to attack he took the opportunity, sending the stick straight to her collar bone where it stopped just short of her skin. Before he could even say the count, she moved. But he copied her moves from earlier, knocking the stick out of her hand. 

Before he can get his next point a hand catches his stick mid-air. Spock is right next to him, still in his impeccable uniform. "It appears that your match is over." 

Panting, Jim gave a little smirk. 

"You trying' to cut in, Spocko? Wanna have a little hanbō dance of our own?" Jim ripped his stick from Spock's grasp. He kicked the fallen hanbo up from off the ground, catching it in his hand. There was just something about Spock, his uniform, his ears, his straight bangs, his blunt fingertips, the way he looked at him. Jim just wanted to muss him up, wrinkle his clothes, give a little more color to that face of his though a friendly punch or two. 

"That is not my name." A pause. "I accept your offer, Mr. Kirk." Uhura stood, protesting. Spock sent a look that must have been meaningful because she sighed and nodded. 

"Good luck Kirk," she says as she puts her boots and jacket back on. She stood apart from the crowd and though they were very obviously paying attention to her, she doesn't spare them one look. Her attention was on Spock. "You're going to need it."

When he looked back to Spock, the commander was discarding his uniform jacket and the pressed button up underneath, leaving only a white undershirt. He was nothing nothing but lean muscle on every inch of his body, chest hair poking out from the neck of his shirt. Jim inhaled. Huh, he blinked. Maybe _that's_ what it was. Maybe he wanted to wrinkle his clothes in an entirely different way. 

He shook it off, settling into his stance. Open, loose, ready to block, dodge, attack at a moments notice. Spock was closed, tight, arms close to his body and severely tense like a snake about to strike. 

For every swing Jim takes at him he has to maneuver around two. Every assault drives him back into the mat and every clack of the two hanbō hitting feels like thunder in his ears. Jim gets one point in early on after pulling something entirely too acrobatic for a Kwoon match. It was worth it for the look on Spock's face, eye brows raised as far as they could go, simply stunned. But the next two points belong to Spock, who wins them after brutal attacks. The formations Jim learned in the program had never been so formidable than they were now. He usually found a way through them, the techniques being so formulaic but Spock had no weak spots and he never made a mistake. 

They engage in long sequences, switching from defense to offense in at a moments notice. Every time Jim thinks there's an opening Spock is covering it, changing, attacking, taking his third point of the match by landing Jim hard on his back.

"You should concede," Spock says, breath just slightly labored. "And stop being an embarrassment to yourself. You will not win." 

There is just something about him, something that makes Jim want to punch him in the face. So when he gets back up, instead of leading another assault against Spock, Jim goes ahead and sends his fist flying. 

There is a gasp in the crowd, one that Jim barely hears. He is too busy trying to memorize the look on Spock's face, the way that bit of blood coming out of his nose looks on his startled face. His hair is tousled and his clothes are wrinkled from the fight. Jim grins at the sight. 

The moment does not last long. 

It's his face that makes contact with the mat first, followed by the rest of his body slamming down. His arms are wrenched behind his back to the point where it's almost painful. Spock's voice is calm and dangerous in his ear. 

"It would be wise to yield now." 

"No," Jim bites out, struggling with all of his might but Spock has a knee pinning him down and he gets nowhere. 

"Do not underestimate me."

"Fuck off, pointy." 

The grip on his arm tightens and Jim feels the soft inhale of breath from Spock's mouth and he shudders. But before either of them can say another insult a sharp whistle cuts through the air and Jim curses. Spock releases him to stand at parade rest in front of the Admiral. Jim doesn't bother explaining, doesn't even bother looking at Pike. He can already feel the disappointment radiating from him. He's nineteen again, beaten up and bruised with a split lip and a black eye in a jail cell in Iowa being dared to do better.

He doesn't wait for Pike to excuse him. He grabs his boots and excuses himself. 

\---

It's past two a.m. in the Shatterdome and outside the noises of the night shift outside, it is mostly quiet in the engineering department. Though their shift was over hours ago, when Jim walked back into Scotty's office to blow off steam by working he found Scotty tinkering away at several complicated pieces of the pons device anyway. He raised his eyebrows at Jim's state, several bruises from the hanbō starting to purple but said nothing at Jim's pleading look. He just wanted to exhaust himself until he could fall asleep in the peaceful neural bleed. 

Most of all he wanted to forget how Pike looked at him from within the crowd. Jim couldn't believe that it got so bad so fast, that he let himself get that unhinged. Uhura's words cut too deep. He'd been reminded of his failures once too many times today. And Spock, Jim sighed from his work table just from the thought of him. He was resigned to never being on the right footing with that guy. He only had to wait a month and then Spock would be gone. He could do it. They'd probably get in a few more fistfights here and there though. 

Jim sighed. He fucked up so bad. 

"Do you always work this late?" 

Uhura. 

Of course it was. Jim clenched his eyes shut, saying a silent prayer that he didn't fuck up more tonight.  "On a day like today, yeah." 

She pauses, then, "I'm sorry about that. I didn't expect it to go that far." 

Jim snorted. "The fight with you or with Spock?"

"Both." 

There is a quiet shuffle as she moves to his side to peer at his work. "This is the Enterprise," she says, surprised. 

It is. In front of him are the blue prints of the mangled right arm. Jim has to understand how the machine was made in order to put it back together again and, even though he's technically not supposed to, make it better than before. "Yeah," he says, scratching nervously at the design beard still on his face. "While Scotty is repairing the core, I'll be in charge of putting her back together, making her better." 

She pursed her lips. "Better? The Enterprise is the best of the fleet."

"Well, yeah. But she could be quicker." He tapped a part of the paper. "See, here we could replace the heavier cables with a lighter, sturdier version that didn't exist when the Enterprise was built. And the target accuracy could be revamped a bit."

"Says who?"

"Says someone who's made a better one. Listen, I was a pilot before I was a engineer. I know what's needed and what's not." 

"Huh." Uhura traces over the lines on the paper, its broken right arm, her broken right arm. Though all pilots felt the hits the Kaiju received, Jim himself had never had to experience the pain of something like that. The teeth of the Kaiju biting into your arm and ripping away pieces. She'd have the scars of the circuitry burned into her even after the pain receded. "And here I thought that you were just some lackey." 

He smiles tensely. Things were going so well. "Why are you here, Uhura?" 

Biting her lip, she sat. "I've been looking for you actually…" She is quiet for a long moment and for someone who knows so many languages it appeared that she didn't have the right words in any of them. Jim draws a few marks on the piece of paper, writing shorthand the things he'll need to fix it while he waits for her to speak. She exhales her next words. 

"I knew Gaila."

Jim entire body goes tense, eyes straight ahead on the piece of paper. "Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," she breathed. "She was a good friend of mine. She talked about you sometimes." He knows he should say something to that but can't figure out what, can't remember what to do in this circumstance, can only sit and stare at his pencil without looking at Uhura at all. He swallows several times, trying to dislodge the pain in this throat. "I grieve with thee," she says. At his surprised look she smiles, eyes red. "It's just something we say at Vulcan." 

It is a long moment before Jim is able to speak. 

"It's…It's okay. We… hadn't spoken in years." 

"Right. She talked about that too."

Gaila and her pulled back hair, Gaila and her endless optimism, Gaila and her secrets so close to his own, Gaila reading on the shoulder of her Jaeger, Gaila with a hanbo in hand as she wiped the floor with all of her challengers, Gaila coming back from a successful mission and her proud smile, Gaila, Gaila, Gaila. God, he missed her. He blinked his eyes multiple times, taking deep breaths, here, now, here, now. 

"Listen, I… Why are you bringing this up? Are you…" He huffed out a harsh breath. "Are you trying to make me feel like shit for not being there? Is that what this has all been about? Are you taking that out on me?" 

Uhura face becomes hard, made of steel. "You should have at least come to the funeral."

"To bury an empty box?" Jim gives her an incredulous look. He'd buried too unrecovered bodies to believe in its healing power. Uhura's lips thinned. "I couldn't do that, not to her. Don't try to make me feel worse than I do for not being there with her. I don't need anyone else to remind me to feel bad about that." 

Jim steepled his hands in front of his mouth. "Look, I know I failed her, I know what she gave up for me. I know her drift was messed up after that. I know should have been there in that Jaeger with her but… I wasn't. You were right okay?" He smiled sadly. "A good simulation score doesn't mean that you're a good pilot."

Her face falls. "I didn't mean it like that." 

"Yeah you did. It doesn't matter. I still couldn't drift with her. She loved me and I still couldn't drift." 

They stay silent for a long period of time, Jim unable to look at her and Uhura unable to say anything. When he asked that she leave, she does so quietly, lingering to look back at him only once in the doorway. "I was wrong about you," she said. And then she was gone. 

The moment he couldn't hear her steps anymore, he sucked in a great gasp of air. Every part of his body shook with unwanted memories. 

That morning, that morning Jim felt all the pieces crumble, Gaila found him late at night in the conn-pod. Soon enough the Bandit Chase would have new pilots and he wanted to remember every moment it was still his, every moment he was still technically a hero. He may have been crying because he remembered her only through a blurry lens, edges even softer than normal. 

Jim, she said, Jim. It's okay. This isn't the end of the world. She bumped his forehead with hers. 

I know we're drift compatible, she whispered. He could feel her smile on his skin and he smiles too. He had a drawer in her room, kept papers and shoes strewn all over the floor and never knocked before entering and she didn't mind. She was convinced and so was he. 

But they weren't. 

For all the love he had for her, no matter how close her secrets were to his, when they were strapped into the Jaeger it didn't matter. You're never supposed to hide anything from your drift partner or linger on any memory. When they initialized the neural handshake, it all just fell apart. Jim chased the rabbit. He was thirteen again and everyone was screaming and there was blood on his hands there was blood on his clothes a roar the likes of which he had never heard before the building next to him crumbled to the ground--

Then it wasn't only his own memories. He distantly heard Gaila yelling his name. When he turned around she was younger, running toward him him, away from the Category III that chasing after her, memories of her family crushed in the house they'd lived in all of her life.

And then he puked and passed out, the load too much.

They were not allowed to try again.

Pike had been promoted to Admiral and was leaving for LA. Bones and Scotty were being moved too, to better equipment and more room. Jim was not allowed to come. He couldn't leave, couldn't go back to being a civilian. But he couldn't stay, not as a hack ex-pilot who coudln't drift with anyone to save his life. The day Bones was supposed to leave he barged into Jim's room and told him to pack a bag and to wear this uniform, hold onto these papers and don't say a word. Jim did as he was told, followed silently as McCoy bullied the jumphawk attendant into letting his 'assistant' on board. Pike said nothing and Scotty was petulant beside a beaming Chekov, also smuggled on board.

Gaila had run out to landing pad. She didn't question him, only looked at him. She nodded and said, "Don't die, Jim. Be safe. Come back one day." 

He promised. They both knew he was lying. 

Jim now tried to forget that, to center himself, to focus on anything else. He worked until he crashed at his desk, dreaming in the neural bleed.


End file.
